Correggio and Parmigianino: On the Place of Rome in the Historiography of Sixteenth-Century Parmese Drawing

This paper intends briefly to review the historiography of Parmese sixteenth-century drawing in order to interrogate assumptions about disegno and colorito, about center and periphery, about an accepted canon and its exclusions. Although the debate over disegno and colorito has traditionally been seen almost exclusively in terms of Central Italy and Venice, a consideration of Vasari's respective biographies of Correggio and Parmigianino shifts the focus to Parma, at once extending the discourse and testing the underlying premises of Vasari's historical model. Particular attention will be paid to Vasari's critique of Correggio and his putative failure to visit Rome. Parmigianino's Roman sojourn is documented, and his drawings have been continuously prized and collected from his own day until the present. Correggio was accorded his due recognition and acclaim in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when active interest in collecting his designs, although comparatively few sheets survive, began. The question of his trip to Rome functions as a topos in the debate over his graphic prowess, culminating with Padre Sebastiano Resta, the great champion of Correggio's drawings, who insisted that the artist had taken not one, but two trips to the Eternal City.